💾 Archived View for freeshell.de › gemlog › 2024-07-16_Lake_surprise.gmi captured on 2024-08-25 at 02:58:38. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

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Lake surprise ☱

I once mentioned the lake where we sometimes walk.

We were there a few days ago, looking at baby coots. They start as a fluffy ball with a red face, then get rather elegant grey throats. Even when quite large they will ignore food that's in the water right next to them, preferring to be fed by their parents.

Two of the grey-throat coot babies came out if the foliage looking purposeful. They seemed to be following something. It took me a while to realise that it was a snake they were swimming after. A parent coot joined the chase. The snake tried zig-zagging but the coots kept up the pursuit. Eventually the snake disappeared into the plants at the water's edge near my feet, and the coots were satisfied that they'd seen it off.

I think that's only the second time in my life I've seen a snake in the wild.